The Japanese are making the most of the simplified Visa-On-Arrival (VOA) facility for foreign tourists, whose inflow has shown a marginal growth in the first quarter of the current calendar year.
The highest number of foreigners using VOA to India during January to April, 2013 were from Japan (2,638), followed by New Zealand (1,291), and Indonesia (937). India also got tourists from Philippines, Singapore, Finland, Vietnam, luxembourg, Cambodia, Myanmar and laos.
During the period January to April, 2013, a total number of 7,152 VoAs were issued as compared to 5,045 VOAs during the corresponding period of 2012, registering a growth of 41.8%. If seen since April 2012, overall tourists getting VOA has grown 23.5%.
As for Foreign Tourist Arrivals during the period January-April 2013, the numbers stood at 24.80 lakh - a marginal 1.9 per cent increase as compared to the FTAs of 24.34 lakh during January-April 2012.
The encouraging signs for Indian tourism are due to the spate of measures introduced by Ministry of Tourism to ease VOA facility, sources said.
In a recent measure, the tourism ministry has allowed visa fee payments using debit and credit cards. So far, all tourists requiring VOA facility had to make rupee payments, which was not just impractical as Indian exchange is not readily available in most countries but was also in breach of security.
“It should be in force by month end. This measure to introduce the debit and credit card facility will stop the illegal practice of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel escorting the foreign tourist into the Indian exchange offices on the other side of the arrival counter for currency conversion even before all completing arrival formalities,” said a tourism ministry official.
“While it was illegal, it was also inconvenient for foreign tourists and caused unnecessary delays in the immigration process,” said the official.
Earlier this year, the ministry had extended the VOA facility from four to nine airports, which included Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, Trivandrum and Goa alongside the four metropolitan cities. A Home Ministry order dated April 1, 2013 also gave a go-ahead to collective landing permits to foreign travelers visiting India in groups of four or more. Earlier, the ministry had extended the VOA facility to all countries excluding Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Pakistan and foreigners of Pakistani origin.